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Am I the only one that suspects that the purpose of Showtime, when it was added to the world of premium cable, was not quite as advertised? I think the point was to entertain the business traveler who wanted to watch a little porn in his hotel room after hours, but couldn’t be caught billing porn channels to his room, to then show up on his expense report. Showtime filled that need with a hard-R, soft-porn lineup – particularly in the later hours.

To this day, I still see Showtime’s bespoke content as focusing on this particular market and am often surprised when their productions have other positive qualities. I reflect on this as Californication leaves Netflix, probably never to return.

As I write this, we are on the cusp of the Great Streaming Wars that is certain to, once again, disrupt television as we know it. As shows are disappearing from Netflix, it may (for once) not be Netflix’s fault. Envious of Netflix’s market domination and the resultant irrational stock valuation, all and sundry studios are considering claiming their own stake in that gravy train* by creating their own cash cows made indispensable by exclusive, must-see content.

In Showtime’s case, they are piggy-backed on Amazon Prime. For another $11/ month on top of what you’re already paying Amazon, you can add the Showtime channel. Naturally, they’d be fools to let you get around this fee by letting you watch their shows on Netflix for nothing.

I may be a cynic, but I see this going nowhere good for us, the consumers. From the turn of the millennium, we have been luxuriating in a bath of incredibly good television. Driven by the competition for subscribers to the premium cable channels, viewing was democratized by Netflix. No longer do Sopranos and Game of Thrones addictions require a premium cable package with HBO added. Yet HBO (and others, including (now) Netflix) felt they should churn out high-end television as a means to get subscribers and build their brand. As they try to tighten control over the profits to be had from premium content, it is bound to restrict both access by consumers as well as the profits themselves – meaning less and lesser content for the future.

The Wall St. Journal has made a recurring argument that the consumers will be able to take advantage of the new way. Well, given the context, they’re really arguing that the shareholders will not see that value because consumers will alter their behavior. The Journal‘s view of the future is one with dozens of monthly subscriptions competing, each with exclusive content. Consumers can simply choose what they want to watch next and purchase only that monthly subscription and only for as long as they need. After finishing one show, they can cancel and move on to the next show on a different streaming package. Of course, this also destroys the value of a Netflix subscription to a cord-cutting consumer who just wanted a conveniently-available substitute for cable TV. You’ll be required to actively play a subscription game simply to view an ever-dwindling array of shows.

Anyway, let’s get back to Hank Moody. Californication was, for some time, a buzz amongst those who had Showtime but not really a thing for those of us without. As the seasons piled up, the show became available through my own “channels” and I had read some positive things about it. However, was it really worth trying to grab a handful of soft porn while shielding the consumption thereof from those I’d rather not have witness it? Do I want to be that guy?

Finally, Californication came and went on Netflix with, as usual, the latter motivating me to watch it. I really wish I had started in on it earlier as, to me at least, this is one of those top shows that define this generation’s Golden Age of Television**. Yes, its very heavy on the nookie – don’t let your mother know you’re watching this – but nookie isn’t what defines the show. Or, maybe better put, it’s a story about sex, drugs, and alcohol as a coping mechanism and so the soft-porn scenes actually are integral to the story rather than gratuitous. Well, sometimes.

Californication falls into that particular genre of self-referential black comedy, which has really produced some good stuff. In one episode toward the end of Season 1, after Hank’s agent has read his long-awaited new novella, the agent also realizes that the story (and its under-age girl) is probably autobiographical because Hank “writes about what he knows.” It makes one wonder about the whole series. Is it, also, autobiographical, under-aged girl and all? Perhaps it’s a compilation of industry tales, not necessarily including those involved in the production.

Speaking of under-age, in a show synopsis I read somewhere that it is the story of a “30-something writer who blah-blah-blah.” I was taken aback when I read that. David Duchovny doesn’t look “thirty-something,” nor do I think he looked “thirty-something” in 2007 when the show started. He was 47 at the time and, at least to me, looked in his forties. Not that there is anything wrong with that – like many forty-somethings, I think he’d improved with age since the X-Files days. My first thought was that, since in the first episode he meets 16-year-old Mia (played by a then 22-year-old), the entire cast needed to be shifted about a decade to make the May-December gaps look right. However, I’ll note a fact. Creator/writer/producer Tom Kapinos was in his mid-to-late 30s when the show kicked off, and possibly in his early 30s when he started writing it down.

Whatever the case, I will have to keep up with this one, despite the fact that it has now vanished behind a streaming paywall. I do have to wonder how the writers can keep this up for seven seasons (!). If the characters don’t evolve, you can’t have dozens and dozens of the same episode over and over. But if they do evolve, do you lose what’s made the show work in the first place? I know, everyone’s seen this one but me – so don’t ruin it!

*Is there a contest for most mixed of metaphors? If so, I want a piece of it.

**I hereby declare the Golden Age of Television to run from January 10th, 1999 (first airing of The Sopranos) to December 1st, 2017 (when Netflix approved Stranger Things, Season 3).

I downloaded a Campaign, in this case being a trio of battles from the First and Second Italian Wars. It is entitled Furia Francese and covers the same battle played through earlier. These are user-designed battles intended to improve upon the representation in the stock game (or in the case of Cerignola, an earlier user-made version). The scenarios have no ranged weapons and very restricted (as the author describes them cut-to-the-chase) setups.

Unit movement is greatly restricted in a combination of seeking more realistic movement and counter as well as modifying the units to include command and control considerations. The set-up puts units pretty much in contact, and further restricts movement to funnel units into the historically-correct attacks.

The dark rectangles are impassible terrain, representing either literally impassible terrain (e.g. hills) or perhaps just command issues. Very minimalistic. But there are rain effects!

Looking at the above screenshot, from the Battle of Fornovo illustrates a few points. The units are restricted from crossing to ahistorical parts of the battle by the dark gray rectangles (impassible terrain). Movement is further restricted by very low movement allowances on each unit plus, in some cases, further restricted terrain. In the upper-left corner of the screen, the small blue units are immovable. They exist, apparently, to delay the combat between the larger pike units on both sides. Note also the baggage train. After pushing aside some French resistance, the AI is going to go after those baggage units. This simulates the feature of the battle where victorious Italian cavalry was essentially taken out of the fight while they looted the baggage train.

With little choice in movement, there isn’t much strategy. It becomes a game of waiting to see which die rolling will prevail. Each wing is like like a timer with random properties, and if X breaks before Y the player will win, if Y before X the computer. Furthermore, the outcome of the matchups rarely seems to be in question. Most fights are fairly one-sided, the only question being one of timing. The scenario designer also uses a trick common to Field of Glory user scenarios, inserting unusable and unreachable units in to game the engine. Jarringly, they are picked for there stats and no other reason so, the Italians might find themselves with some Ottoman infantry on their side.

From a scenario design perspective, there is some merit in this approach. The game engine is forced to execute the battle according to reality. From a gameplay perspective, however, this is a way of taking away everything that is fun from the game a leaving only what is not.

Court Intrigue

The quote at the beginning is a line delivered by a fictional King Charles VIII. He is foreshadowing what we all know will happen when France invades Italy. It will bring destruction and terror, even to some of those who helped engineer the invasion. Was Charles actually so circumspect?

That story, as told by The Borgias, has advanced to a point where the narrative in the show matches the games I’ve been playing and the battles that I am reading about. I’ve finished with the first season, which ends with Charles’ capture of Naples. It really makes a great counterpoint for my gaming.

Obviously, a detailed drama has got to make much of the detail up out of whole cloth. The historical record is nowhere near complete enough to recreate accurate interpersonal interactions in the public sphere, much less recreate what may have gone on in private. Naturally, when one is creating a story to suit the needs of its telling, it becomes easy to stray away from even the known facts into more appealing fiction. It probably grates on some to see history bent to serve the ratings. I’m fine with enjoying the show while not taking anything on face value.

Another writing detail that may bother some is the mixing of the modern with the historical. Obviously, we need the characters speaking 21st century English, not 14th century Italian, just so we can follow along. But how far is too far? I suspect that the music used is sometimes way ahead of the times, while at other times closer. I suspect similar mixed-performance in costume, sets and, especially, the behavior. However this, done right, can (in my mind) improve a performance. The sensibilities of 500+ years ago, played accurately, would often be foreign to us, where as “translating” them to a more modern situation helps immerse the modern viewer in the situation.

The scene of the (first) wedding of Lucrezia is a case in point. The scenery is very impressive and I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that it wasn’t too far of the historical. The wedding music is probably close enough to historically accurate, but it has some modernity hidden within. Dance club for the 1490s. The dance is similar. It is a formal dance (again, benefit of the doubt) suitable to the period but it is infused with modern flirtatiousness. As I said, I personally find this mix compelling.

A friend was reading a biography of the reformation period and was struck by the similarities between modern “social media” and the methods used to communicate the religious/political ideas of the day. The new technology of the printing press and armies of zealous students were a potent vector for change, and one that has remarkable parallels to today. I was reminded of this when The Borgias presented the 15th century version of Tinder. As various houses present suitors for the children of the Pope, they send a delegation to talk up the proposition and then unveil a portrait. The Pope e famiglia are then left to swipe left or right at their leisure. Accurate? I have no idea, but it all reminds us that people have always been people, even five centuries ago. Framed in the right way, the events of the past can have remarkable parallels to the present and this has been the kind of drama to do it.

My other favorite bit in this show has been the armor. In particular, I love the armor of Giovanni Borgia, Gonfalonier and Captain General of the Papal armed forces. It is a mix between late medieval, Renaissance, and Roman Empire. I am not aware of any contemporary depiction that would support such a style. It’s just a cool (and probably a modern) idea.

The depiction of the armies overall is well done, particularly for a TV series. There are no battles depicted, which is accurate. Except for a couple of lootings, there wasn’t much in the way of fighting during the invasion. But the armies arrayed have a nice combination of period costumes and CGI to portray both the detail and the vastness of the French forces.

The second of the Italian Wars, also know as the Second Italian War or Louis XII’s Italian War was initiated by Louis XII to make good on the claims that Charles VIII could not.

Louis XII decided to press claims on Milan and Naples. While he had familial ties to the thrown of Milan, his claim upon Naples was rather dubiously that he had inherited the claim from the fact that his predecessor had seized control. If walloping on minor Italian countries with one of the world’s most powerful armies wasn’t unsportsmanlike enough, Louis secured the backing of the other major powers.

With Venice, he agreed to grant them some of Milan’s territories, once conquered, in exchange for a military alliance. To Pope Alexander VI, he promised to back the machinations of Cesare Borgia, Alexander’s illegitimate son who was attempting to build his own fiefdom in Northern Italy.

Louis was also concerned about an attack from Spain while his armies were busy in Italy. To that end, he made a further promise to Spain to split up the conquered Naples in exchange for treaty.

After the combined forces of Spain and France defeated Naples and Louis claimed the crown, the details of the division of spoils proved divisive. War ensued, now between the French and the Spanish. Battles between the Spanish and the French reflected those of the First Italian War, but Spain had learned lessons in the previous conflict. France suffered significant defeats in 1503 at the battle of Cerignola(April 28th) and Garigliano (December 29th). At the outset of 1504, Louis was forced to abandon Naples to Spanish control.

My newly devised pike and shot formations begin the work of driving back the French from Cerignola’s defenses.

The Cerignola scenario is a user-created addition to Pike and Shot. It reproduces the battle where the Spanish armies defended against numerically superior French. Neverthless, the Spanish had several key advantages (in addition the advantage of the defense). Despite the French having superior artillery, that artillery had not yet been brought up for the battle, meaning the French were forced to close at the mercy of Spanish artillery. Also, the Spanish commander had learned his lesson from the First Italian War, and began experimenting (so says the screen shot) with combined pike and arquebus formations capable of holding their own against the French and Swiss pike.

The scenario played out similarly enough to what the historical record suggests. The battle ultimately came down to the close combat between the French Kiels and the Spanish Colunelas. Both effectiveness and flexibility (in the game, the Spanish has more but smaller heavy infantry) seemed to propel the game to an inevitable Spanish victory. There were some moments where I worried that the French would not break soon enough, but eventually they did.

This battle is given the distinction of being the first European fight where gunpowder played the decisive roll. It also marked the end of the French dominance of the battlefields of Europe. For nearly 150 years hence, it would be the Spanish armies that would seem invincible.

About those Borgias

Being Showtime, we open the TV series The Borgias right up with a little Rama-lama-ding-dong. It’s a fine line to walk. Is the soft-core porn just to please the Showtime audience, or is it an important part of establish Bishop Cesare Borgia’s decidedly non-ecclesiastical moral fiber?

As the show develops, the gratuitous nudity might even be a tad subdued relative to what has come to be the formula from HBO and Showtime. In fact, given that I’ve come to expect a discernible difference in quality between the HBO and Showtime -produced series, I will compliment this series saying I might mistake it for the former. I’m only a couple of shows into the series, and I’ve yet to see whether (and if, then how) they handle the large, cinematic battles that have also come to mark the HBO productions since their release of Rome.

So far, the stage is mostly restricted to the inner sanctums of the Vatican, allowing the center of the Christian world to be portrayed by a handful of actors and sets. Costuming, sets and the acting, particularly with Jeremy Irons as Pope Alexander, rises to the occasion. As seems to be the case with series of this kind, the second season earned a more positive reception than the first, which suggests that following through with the series will be rewarded.

The series begins some years before the Second Italian War, opening with Pope Innocent VIII’s death (in 1492) and Alexander’s election. Cesare Borgia is still …

One thing that struck me, actually even before watching the first episode, is the ages at which these historical figures became such. Cesare Borgia was a Bishop at age 15, an Archbishop at 17 and became a Cardinal at 18. Remarking on his daughter Lucrezia, the Pope says that at 14, it is high time she should marry. And he would surely think such a thing. Lucrezia is played by a 23-year-old actress and is described as 14 to soften the impact of the truth. In point of fact, Lucrezia was first married at age 11.

Not that I would advocate for 11-year-olds getting married, but there was a time when teenagers accepted adult responsibilities in the world and accomplished much. While extending the protection of childhood to underdeveloped teenage personalities is appropriate, infantilizing our offspring into their early 20s is absurd. We would do well to remember how different things were a few generations back.

That said, I’ll not be letting my children view The Borgias any time soon.